Timeslots is a powerful feature in OMINS which allows users to decide when to start new listings or when to close them.Timeslots是一个很强大的OMINS功能

This feature is located under products -> products promotion view -> auction rules tab, and is illustrated in the image below:

Background

When rules are set to always maintain, OMINS creates new listings as soon as possible based on listing priority. If all products are set to use the same listing priority, OMINS will select items to list at random based on your listing allowance. However, you might want certain listings to be created at a set time and always list at the same time each week. This is where timeslots comes in handy.

Timeslots give you more control over when your auctions start or end as it lets you specify exact start or end times.

Configuring Timeslots

You can specify whether you want timeslots to represent auction start or end times. This is managed from settings -> promo group -> [double click your promo group] -> auction tab

If you want timeslots to represent the end date of your auctions, select end date of auction from the Timeslots represent dropdown.

If you want them to represent the start date of your auctions, select start date of auction from the dropdown.

Usage Example

To start an auction on Monday, 9:00 AM, here are the steps that you will have to follow:

1. Check to make sure that timeslots are set to represent “start date of auctions” under your promo group (as explained above), then set Timing to “use timeslots” on the auction rules tab. (If set to represent “end date of auctions”, auctions would start at the correct time so as to allow them to end at the appropriate end day and time to match your timeslots).

2. Create a new timeslot group from products -> timeslot groups.

3. Click the “new” button and enter an appropriate title for the timeslot group, in this case “Monday”.

4. Go back to the “auction rules” tab (you may have to refresh the page to see your newly created timeslot group), select Monday from the timeslot group dropdown. The click the “go to” link next to it to enter the settings menu for that group.

3. Click the timeslots tab on the settings page.

4. Click the pencil icon against the existing timeslot to edit settings or add a new timeslot. Set the exact time that you want the auction to start and click the add timeslot button.

5. Back on the auction rules tab, set timeslots to fill to 1.

6. Select “use only top timeslots” from the selection dropdown and click save.

Your auction will start at the time specified in the timeslot group.

Timeslots to fill

Suppose you want the same product to be listed three times a week. You can inert new timeslots using the “add timeslot” button on that timeslot group and then under auction rules, set ” Timeslots to fill” to 3. OMINS will list new auctions on the specified days.

If you have three or more timeslots listed in a group but want to use just 1, enter 1 in the timeslots to fill box and OMINS will only list one auction.

Offset

Offset can be used to add or subtract a number of minutes from the time specified in the time group.

For example, if you specify an auction start time as 9:00 AM but want the auction to start 10 minutes earlier, you can enter a negative value (-10) in the offset box.

Selection

This can be set to “use only top timeslots” or “use next available timeslots”.

– Use only top timeslots

This is used in conjunction with “tmeslots to fill” when you have multiple timeslots listed in a group. It can used to define which of the timeslots in the selected timeslot group will be used.

Usage Example

Suppose you have a $1 reserve auction which you want listed three times a week at exact times. You can specify exact start times in the group and set selection to use top timeslots. If you set “timeslots to fill” to 3, OMINS will list auctions as per each of the three timeslots in that group. (this gives you the advantage of having multiple auction rules, without creating multiple auction rules, using similar timing setups so you don’t have to set your times for each rule)

There may be cases where you have several timeslots listed in a group but want to use only some of them. For example, under the Default timeslot group there are 35 predefined timeslots. If you want to use just 4 of them, you can sort the list so that it displays the desired timeslots at the top (using the up and down arrows), set “timeslots to fill” to 4 and “selection” to use only top timeslots.

This will ensure that OMINS uses the top 4 timeslots to create new auctions and ignores the rest of the 31 timeslots in the group.

– Use next available timeslot

Suppose you want to list an auction only once a week but as soon as it closes, you want it to relist the same night without having to wait a number of days. This can be achieved using “use next available timeslot”.

Usage Example

Suppose you have an auction which want to list today at 8:00 PM and as soon as it closes, you want to relist at 8:00 PM the same night or if it closes after 8:00 PM, relist at 8:00 PM the next night.

Here’s how you can set that up:

1. Create a new timeslot group.

2. For each day of the week (Mon-Sun), create timeslots for 8:00 PM in the same group.

4. On the auction rules tab, set “timeslots to fill” to 1 and “selection” to use next available timeslot.

This is what the timeslot group will look like:

OMINS will list this item on Monday at 8:00 PM but if it is sold on Wednesday at 3:30 PM. OMINS will relist it at 8:00 PM on Wednesday as it will use the next available timeslot and the next available timeslot is Wednesday 8:00 PM.

If the new auction listed on Wednesday at 8:00 PM closes on Friday 11:00 AM, OMINS will relist it at 8:00 PM the same day as that is the next available timeslot.T